


Soft Nights and City Lights

by r0sie_p0sies



Category: Durarara!!
Genre: Book Spoilers, F/M, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Kida and Saki are so beautiful together, Past Child Abuse, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Saki and Kida lament about how awful Izaya is, also there are mentions of sex, i may or may not have cried while writing this, if you haven't read the 13th book, pure and supportive love between sad kids
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-12-04
Updated: 2016-12-04
Packaged: 2018-09-06 10:23:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,386
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8746810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/r0sie_p0sies/pseuds/r0sie_p0sies
Summary: Summer turns to early fall, and the breeze is cooler and heavy with the smell of salt. In the morning before Masaomi wakes up she sits down by the boardwalk and inhales the air slowly, appreciating how crisp and clean it is in her lungs. The air in the city always made her feel like she was suffocating. Here everything is okay, and she can breathe just fine.





	

The weather is pleasant and warm by the ocean. Saki stands on the edge of the boardwalk as if she is standing on the edge of the world, and looks out across the vast sea like this is where the horizon ends and Ikebukuro no longer exists. The mid afternoon sun glitters on the water, and for the first time in her life Saki finds herself thinking that the color blue is beautiful. Masaomi stands at her side with their bags in his hands and a distant shine in his eyes.

She feels at home with him, here. It is odd to think that she can feel at home when she’s somewhere altogether unfamiliar and new, but the city never felt much like anything to her, and she ended up finding a person to belong to rather than a place. When she’s with Masaomi she feels content and safe and loved. She thinks that these are all the things a home should make someone feel.

 

___________________________________

 

Masaomi laughs like sunshine has a voice and has decided to speak through him. Saki loves it when he laughs, and she is glad that she can make him do it so often and so loudly. She is glad that she is someone who can make him happy. 

He laughs as they unpack their things in the tiny apartment they are renting, teasing that they won’t have enough room to keep all their clothes and Saki’s books. He laughs as they make dinner with the few ingredients that she bought when they wandered into town earlier that day, and he nearly slices his finger open when he tries to dice onions with his shoulders shaking. He laughs as she kisses him that night, feeling the smile on his face with her lips, all bumping noses and clicking teeth and whispery breaths. They laugh together through the innocent nervousness of undressing in front of each other for the first time; Saki’s stomach is jittery with anticipation and some emotion that is dangerously close to anxiety, but the second Masaomi takes her into his arms and she has the heat of his skin against her own all of that seems to melt away, swallowed by the immensity of his love. Briefly Saki wonders if his love will swallow her up, too, since she has never had much faith in her ability to keep herself intact in the face of anything so great and powerful. 

But where Izaya had been a fire that consumed her, Masaomi’s love is soft and gentle and kind, patient and giving—always giving, generous when she loses the nerve to ask for what she wants. Saki is not used to people asking her what she wants. 

Masaomi laughs as he holds her close, and the sound makes something burst to life in her chest, a warmth that curls her toes and forces the air out of her lungs. When she recovers she laughs with him.

 

___________________________________

 

Saki is still learning to let herself be exactly what she is, to feel exactly what she feels when she feels it. Sometimes it is wonderful, but sometimes it is strange and unnatural. There are some moments when she imagines being able to peel her skin from her bones and crawl right out of her body: becoming something better, something more bearable. One balmy summer night she tells Masaomi this.

He is silent for a little bit. “How often do you feel like that?” he asks eventually, and Saki shrugs. She honestly hasn’t given it too much thought. 

“I don’t know,” she says, wracking her brain for an answer that will not alarm him. When she can’t think of a way to soften the blow she decides to just be honest. After all, that is what he relies on her for, isn’t it? “A lot, maybe. When I don’t like what I am. When I don’t like the thoughts in my head. When I think of Izaya.”

Much to his credit, Masaomi does not tense at the name. Instead he rolls over and wraps an arm around her waist, his touch slow and careful, like any moment she might leap from the bed if he were to move too fast. “What about him do you think of?” he asks. 

Saki knows that he knows. They have talked about Izaya before, but for some reason tonight it is infinitely more difficult, the words swelling in her throat before she gets a chance to speak them. She feels her eyes become wet so she squeezes them shut to try and stop the shattering sensation that rattles her ribcage. A warbled sob frees itself from her chest, and all at once Masaomi’s hands are on either side of her face, running through her hair, wiping the tears from her cheeks. 

“He’s gone, Saki,” he whispers. He sounds so sad. She hates it. She doesn’t want him to suffer for something that Izaya did to her. “He’s gone, he’s gone, he’s gone. He doesn’t control you, or either of us, anymore.”

Saki shakes her head. Crying has always been hard for her to do, and now that she’s started she can’t quite seem to stop. Her eyes burn and her throat aches. “He’s hurting some other girl now, I know he is,” she sobs. “He’s making some other girl do the things he made me do. If it’s not me, then it’s someone else. The girls he wants…they’re young, they’re desperate, they’re in pain. That’s how he likes them. That’s how he liked _me_.”

Masaomi cradles her head against his chest as she hiccups, twisting her fingers into his shirt to try and keep herself grounded. His breathing is fast and ragged in her ear.

“Is that why you think about leaving yourself?” he asks quietly. She hums a weak response. 

“It hurts, sometimes, to not be what he wanted me to be,” she says. It is a strange and uncomfortable admission that Masaomi shivers over. “And it hurts to be that, too. Sometimes it hurts to be anything, and I don't like thinking about what he did, and how…I wanted it.”

“You didn’t want it.” Masaomi’s voice is harsh. 

“I did.”

“No, you didn’t.” He lifts her chin so that he can look her in the eyes, and she thinks he might be crying too but it’s hard to tell with the moonlight shining soft on his face. “Maybe you wanted parts of it; how he made you feel like he needed you. But the rest—the rest, Saki, you didn’t ask for. You didn’t deserve it, either. He took advantage of you.” 

Saki stares at the warm glow that bathes him as it shines through the window of their room, like the echoes of stars are dancing across his skin, like he is not quite of this world. His words spark a pain somewhere deep inside of her. “I don’t love him anymore,” she says hurriedly, as if it is something Masaomi questions. “I love _you_. I’ve always loved you.”

He presses his lips to her forehead with a shaky exhalation. “I know,” he whispers. “I love you, too, and that’s what matters.” 

Saki still hurts, but it isn’t as bad now. She falls asleep with his arms around her and his fingers in her hair and the moonlight warm against their backs.

 

___________________________________

 

Summer turns to early fall, and the breeze is cooler and heavy with the smell of salt. In the morning before Masaomi wakes up she sits down by the boardwalk and inhales the air slowly, appreciating how crisp and clean it is in her lungs. The air in the city always made her feel like she was suffocating. Here everything is okay, and she can breathe just fine. 

 

___________________________________

 

A few months go by. She feels as though the two of them are suspended somewhere between bliss and misery: bliss when they are together, misery when both of them remember what Masaomi has left behind in Ikebukuro. It’s not that she wants him to go back, but she can tell there is worry haunting him even when he seems like he’s alright, and pitted up against his sadness she is helpless.

There are some days when Masaomi cannot lift himself from the bed. Most of the time Saki likes to tell herself that she knows exactly what to say to help, but in moments like this the only thing she can think of to do is just to lie down next to him and live through this moment, as they are—just two very sad people, who are a little less sad together. He does not utter a word when she takes her hand in his and squeezes gently to let him know that she’s there.

 

___________________________________

 

Some things have always come easy to Saki, and helping people is one of them. She is not afraid to tell the truth where most others would be afraid or ashamed to, and she thinks that it is for that reason alone that she is able to get through to Sonohara Anri. 

It is winter, now, and she is sitting across from Masaomi’s friend in her small apartment in Ikebukuro, feeling the chill of the wind outside even through the socks on her feet. Sonohara looks at her with wide, surprised eyes.

Saki doesn’t think about anything before she says it. She only knows that it feels right, it seems like something Sonohara needs to hear, it seems like something she would want to hear if she were in her position. She wishes someone had told her that it was okay to love and be loved by other people when she was trapped with Izaya—but as long as she can tell that to someone else now, that’s all that matters. Saki can’t help but see a little of her younger self in the timid and reserved girl on the other side of the table.

“You’re very wise, Mikajima,” Sonohara says at last, her hand trembling slightly as it comes up to adjust the position of her glasses on her nose. Saki laughs and shakes her head.

“I’m not, really. I just know a lot about people who think they deserve too little…or too much.” She smiles softly, and Sonohara visibly relaxes, not as put-off by the speech as Saki thought she would be.

“I can see why Kida must like you so much. He should be with someone like you,” Sonohara says, and then flushes all the way to her hairline, rushing to hide her face with her hands. “I mean—I’m sorry, maybe that came across as rude? I just meant that…well, Kida is so good, and you…” Sonohara stops her own rambling and slumps a bit in embarrassment. Saki reaches across the table and carefully pries Sonohara’s fingers away from over her eyes so that the girl can see the genuineness in her gaze.

“And I keep Masaomi on track, is that what you were going to say?” she teases. Sonohara squeaks, and Saki laughs again, louder this time. “I don’t think he would have come back to Ikebukuro if I hadn’t told him to.”

“That was you?” Sonohara’s voice wavers with something Saki thinks might be awe. She nods.

“Masaomi has trouble facing things head-on. That’s why he ran away with me: because he wanted to get away from the city, and I did too, but he also didn’t want to face you and Ryuugamine,” she says. She realizes that she is still holding Sonohara’s warm hands in hers, and when she starts to let go, Sonohara instinctively grips her tighter for a moment before they are suddenly fumbling apart. Sonohara shoves her hands down between her knees as if to keep them from touching anything ever again. Saki continues breezily. “He’s miserable when he hides from his problems—even when he’s with me. So I told him to go back and help his friends. And he did.”

Sonohara’s shy eyes are searching when she looks at Saki’s face. “And you…you came back, too,” she murmurs. Saki grins at her again.

“To make sure he doesn’t get into too much trouble. Don’t worry, it wasn’t really because of you.”

Saki is happy to see Sonohara’s mouth stretch into a smile, a giggle floating past her lips like the singing of the wind chimes that Saki remembers being sold by the beach. The memory makes her feel peaceful, and so does the gentle sound of Sonohara’s laughter, sweet and sincere and airy as it reverberates in the cramped living room.

 

___________________________________

 

Masaomi sits stretched out beside her on the floor of their new apartment. He is wearing shorts to accommodate for the fact that they don’t yet have air conditioning, trying to save their money for heating for the winter, and even though it is spring the air is somewhat stifling. On the shin of his right leg Saki can see a small pink scar from when Ryuugamine had shot him.

“Does it hurt?” she asks. Masaomi looks down in response to her gaze.

“Not really,” he says. “Sometimes it gets sore, but it’s not bad enough that I can’t move or anything.” When he notices Saki still staring he scoots closer to her, and his movement hikes the fabric of her skirt a tiny bit higher up on her thigh so that the hairs on his leg tickle the skin that’s exposed. “Hey, it’s alright,” he says. She smiles and pushes gently against his shoulder with her own. 

“I know. I was just thinking that it’s funny. We match.”

Now Masaomi’s gaze travels to her legs. The scars there are longer than the one he has, and faded with time, but when she doesn’t wear socks or long pants she can still see the places where the doctors had set her bones with pins and sewed up where the the break had gone through skin. She’s glad she had at least been unconscious when they did that. Masaomi swallows audibly. “We kinda do,” he says. 

“I mean, yours is prettier. It looks almost like a little flower.” 

“Really?”

“Yeah.” Saki reaches over to grab the marker that lies a few feet away on the carpet, next to the notebook she had been doodling in before Masaomi came into the room. She uncaps the lid and leans down with a smile. “Hold still.”

“What are you doing?” Masaomi laughs when she presses it down against his skin, trying to keep the marks fluid and smooth as she makes a small circle in the middle of his scar. From there she draws thin petals that bloom out from the center like rays of sunshine. Eventually she looks down at her handwork, giving a satisfied hum. The flower outlines the curves of the puckered flesh and hides them a bit in the thick black lines of the drawing.

“There,” she says. Masaomi laughs again. 

“Hm, you’re right. It does look like a flower.” Suddenly he grabs the marker from her hand and rolls over so that he’s propped up on his elbows between her knees. “Okay, my turn.”

Saki doesn’t have any time to respond; already he is tracing along one of the scars on her calf with the cold tip of the marker, and she has to stop her legs from jerking at the sensation. She watches him pepper her skin with tiny stars that follow the scars like he’s connecting constellations. The movement of his hand is mesmerizing, and she isn’t sure how long she stares down at him as he draws before he pulls away and smiles. 

“ _Now_ we match,” he says. 

Saki’s throat grows tight when she smiles back at him. She feels a strong unnamed emotion, something wonderful and bittersweet that she can’t place, and all she can do is reach down and thread her fingers through his blonde hair gently, hoping that this will somehow be able to convey all the love she has for him. Masaomi leans into her touch. 

“You’re beautiful,” he whispers. His breath is warm on her skin when he places his palms on her legs and kisses there. The marker hasn’t quite dried yet, and she sees a small smear of black on his lips when he lifts his head and looks at her, shimmying closer and squaring his shoulders between her thighs. “Can I…?”

“You don’t have to.”

“I want to,” he says. “Plus, I’m already here, so…” Masaomi wiggles his eyebrows until she laughs and lies her head back on the floor, her heart fluttering in her chest. Her fingers are still tangled in his hair, and she notes how soft it is before all semblance of thought is chased from her mind completely, driven away by the tenderness of his mouth and the soothing touch of his hands resting on the places where she knows her scars are. 

 

___________________________________

 

By the time Ryuugamine is released from the hospital and returns to school, Saki doesn’t think that there are any secrets left between her and Masaomi anymore. They have gotten good at letting their honesty go both ways, and they talk about every little thing that bothers them about themselves and the world and things that happened in the past. They don’t dwell on it, but Saki is glad that Masaomi no longer has trouble speaking about the sadness that sometimes still cripples him or the guilt he admits he occasionally feels. Together they work through their emotions about that night when they were thirteen years old, the one that left them both scarred in different ways. Together, Saki feels like they can work through anything. 

They spend many calm evenings sitting on the couch after dinner, their shoulders pressed together, their heads bowed as they recount what happened. Masaomi says it feels almost like he’s repenting for something he didn’t do but sometimes thinks he might as well have, and Saki says she never wants him to think that way. It wasn’t anybody’s fault, they conclude, except for Izaya’s and Izumii’s. Masaomi and Saki have nothing to atone for. 

Most of the time after these talks Saki lies silently in bed next to her boyfriend and reflects on what he has said. She thinks of how Masaomi told her once that Izaya called her a god, and the idea chills her; makes her feel cold and light and dizzy. She wonders what kind of god she would be. 

After a long while of lying still, staring up at the ceiling through the darkness, Saki thinks that perhaps she would be a merciless one—that if the day ever came where Izaya laid himself at her feet and begged for her forgiveness, she would not give it.

 

___________________________________

 

Saki is glad that Masaomi has stopped apologizing for her nightmares. They are much less intense, and few and far between nowadays, but she still wakes up every once in a while with an icy sweat at the base of her neck and a strangled gasp on her lips. Sometimes she sees Izumii Ran looming over her in the back of that van, the empty parking garage blurry and desolate when she looks out the window to try and see if anyone is coming to get her. The other men hide their faces in blue but they can’t hide what they did to her. Sometimes she sees Izaya, his voice low and smooth as he tells her how proud of her he is. He runs his hand along the side of her face and looks deep into her eyes like he might reach down to her soul and make it his, and in the dream Saki shivers at the thought, whether from fear or past delight she isn’t sure. Once she had seen Masaomi lying on the roof with Ryuugamine and a bullet in his leg, his skin pale and sticky with sweat and his chest heaving for each breath, and she thinks that dream had chilled her more than any of the others ever have.

Tonight she hears Masaomi’s voice on the other end of the phone that Izumii holds to her ear. He is yelling her name, and she wants so badly to call out to him, but everything feels far away and strange and cold, and before she can answer something snaps in her leg and pain wrenches the air from her throat. Masaomi is screaming for her; she is screaming, too, and Izumii is laughing, and Izaya is nowhere to be found. Saki startles awake with a jolt. 

Masaomi wakes up a few moments later. He doesn’t say anything, just sits up and wraps his arms around her shoulders. She rocks back and forth in his embrace until the breath has returned to her and she can finally lift her arms to hug him back, and they are silent for a little bit, lost in each other and their own quiet sorrow. From the other side of the room the air conditioner whirs to life.

“You okay?” he asks after a while. 

“Yeah.”

“Do you want to talk about it?”

Saki shakes her head. Masaomi takes hold of her hand and swings his legs around so that he can slip out of bed, his feet hardly making any noise when they touch the floor. Saki wordlessly follows him out of the bedroom and into the darkness of their living room. With all the lights off it somehow looks bigger, with long shadows thrown across the carpet, and the walls are much paler now that the only thing touching them is the moonlight. Masaomi leads her out onto the single tiny balcony of their apartment and shuts the screen door behind them to keep the summer bugs from getting inside. 

The night is warm and still. Somehow, even with Ikebukuro buzzing below them, Saki can hardly hear any noise other than her own breathing in her ears and Masaomi’s gentle sigh beside her. Multicolored lights flash on the horizon, a constant glittering of hundreds of cellphone towers and tall buildings. He gives her hand a gentle squeeze with his fingers.

“Look,” he says softly. “Look how big the city is. Look how alive it is. Doesn’t it make you feel alive?”

Saki stares out over the throngs of bustling people and cars rushing past on the streets. She tilts her head slightly to try and take it all in. “I don’t know,” she replies. “Does it make you feel alive? Is that why you wanted to come back here so much?” When she glances at Masaomi his eyes are shining, and if she were to look closer she imagines she would probably see the hint of a smile at the corners of his lips. 

“Yes,” he says, a little bit breathless. “I think I feel better, here. There’s something about it.”

Saki nods and lets her gaze drift back up to the sky. The moon is just a sliver among the wisps of clouds that float across the vast expanse of inky darkness, the stars small pinpricks of light that wink at the world from high above, and she is more entranced by this than she is by the skyscrapers that hold Masaomi’s attention. Neither of them say much for a few minutes. 

“I dreamt of Izumii,” Saki murmurs eventually. Her voice is quiet even in the silence that seems to have been cast over them, her gaze still fixed on the heavens. The name brings a muted rush of fear that crawls up her throat and makes her mouth feel dry. “I tried to call for you, but he was holding me down, and you couldn’t hear me.” Saki swallows. Her eyes burn. “You couldn’t hear me.” 

Masaomi squeezes her hand again. He runs his thumb across her knuckles; strokes the skin over and over again, the motion smooth and slow and patient, until Saki doesn’t feel like she’s drifting away anymore. “I can hear you now,” he whispers.

She looks now to the city stretched out before them. It reminds her of the ocean that they had gone to so many years ago, so large that it seemed to go on forever and ever without end. The lights dance on the road the same way the sun had glinted off of the water’s edge. Saki lets her head lean against Masaomi’s arm, their fingers still intertwined, and thinks that perhaps Ikebukuro is beautiful after all. 

 

___________________________________

 

Months turn to years, and things evolve in the most wonderful of ways. After school each day Saki walks past Simon’s sushi shop, past Izaya’s old apartment, past the hospital and the parking lot just to prove that she can. It is nearly summer again, and she has to squint against the glare of the sunlight that reflects off of the glassy buildings around her. Sometimes she stops and looks at each place for a while, allowing the emotions to wash over her like the gentle roll of the sea, until she feels like she has untangled some of the knot of complicated feelings that sits in her chest. Sometimes she doesn’t want to look directly at any of the places at all, and that’s alright, too. Masaomi is usually waiting for her back at their apartment, always happy to see her return. Maybe one day she’ll bring him along, but he is content to let her work through whatever it is that she has to work through alone, and when she needs him he is there for her the same way she is there for him. 

The city blooms with life in the growing warmth of changing seasons. The air no longer feels tight and heavy in her lungs; the city has welcomed her back like an old friend, embracing her in a sense of safety and security that it has never brought her before. Slowly Saki realizes that Ikebukuro is not Izaya, or what Izumii did to her, or any of the terrible things that happened to people that she now cares about. Ikebukuro is hers and it is everyone’s and it is nobody’s, and it is a place that she is starting to learn to call home again. 

Here when she’s with Masaomi, everything is okay, and she can breathe just fine.

**Author's Note:**

> :') I love these two so much.


End file.
